America’s kids unmasked two years later: Examining COVID mandate consequences as students return to class; Big-City Public Schools Struggle with Declining Enrollment Post-Pandemic, and other C-Virus related stories

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America’s kids unmasked two years later: Examining COVID mandate consequences as students return to class:

As a new school year starts ramping up, many children nationwide will experience their first day back to school without mask requirements or other COVID-related mandates for the first time in more than two years.

At the start of the new school year in 2021, around 75% of U.S. schools required masking for students or teachers, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Now, only a handful of schools are requiring masks.

But for many, the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic remains. That is especially true in California, where schools implemented some of the strictest COVID policies in the country. The state was also among the last to reopen its schools.

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which begins the new school year Monday, nearly reimposed mask mandates and testing over the summer but dropped them amid major pushback.

Multiple parents who spoke with Fox News Digital said they were relieved that mask mandates have been dropped but say the impact of the past 2 ½ years of COVID policies lingers.

“Isolating children, especially in Los Angeles, socially, academically, and emotionally from their peers has had detrimental effects, the likes of which we are only beginning to feel,” Daniella Bloom, whose children attend school in Los Angeles area, told Fox News Digital. --->READ MORE HERE

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Big-City Public Schools Struggle with Declining Enrollment Post-Pandemic:

Experts say it’s time for education leaders, especially in big cities such as Los Angeles and New York, to acknowledge that declining enrollment in assigned public schools is here to stay.

New York City public schools are projecting enrollment losses of 30,000 students this fall — a decline Mayor Eric Adams has called a “massive hemorrhaging of students.”

The drop in enrollment is part of a larger trend that accelerated during the pandemic: NYC schools lost 43,000 students in the 2020-21 school year, a 4 percent drop from the year before. The next year, NYC schools lost 21,000 students, a 1.9 percent drop.

More than 120,000 students have left the city’s district schools in the last five years. All but one of the DOE’s community school districts saw declining enrollment last year.

NYC school officials have blamed the decline on the pandemic, population shifts, and stalling birth rates, the New York Post reported. Big cities struggling with astronomical costs of living, such as NYC and L.A., have been hard hit by relocations. California and New York State had the largest number of residents moving out of state from 2020 to 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

However, the declining enrollment in New York City and other public-school districts also reflects a larger shift toward school choice. More parents are opting to enroll their children in charter and private schools or to homeschool. Newer options, like microschools — which typically serve 15 students or fewer — and virtual schools, have also increased in popularity since the start of the pandemic in 2020. --->READ MORE HERE

Follow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:

States Where Public Schools Are Losing the Most Students

Pandemic-Era Free School Meals Expire, Leaving Some Districts Seeking Solutions

USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates

WSJ: Coronavirus Live Updates

YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates

NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest

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